(FEB 2007)
Dear Robin,
We just returned from your Tanzania, A Grand Safari Tour, with a departure date of Feb. 24, 2007. It was the first Tauck tour we have taken, and we were very pleased with everything. Specifically, I would like to comment on two aspects of our tour.
Our tour guides, namely Babenga, Samson, Bariki and Severn, were also excellent. They were extremely knowledgeable and could answer every question posed to them by members of our tour. Like Karen, they were very accommodating and did everything they could to ensure that our trip was a memorable experience.
Thank you to everyone at Tauck and Tanzania Photographic Tours and Safaris who contributed to making our tour very successful and exceeding our expectations. We will certainly consider another Tauck tour in the future.
Sincerely,
Josef & Diane Rokus
Locust Grove, VA
(JAN 2007)
Dear Pratik and Sonia,
My name is Wendy and my boyfriend and I have just returned from the 17 day (Tanzania/Kenya - JAN 2007) combo safari with your company.
I thought I would just take a moment to share a few thoughts with you.
First of all....we will never be the same, we will never look upon on our daily lives with the same eyes. Calling this the "trip of a lifetime" would be an understatement.
When I say this to friends and family who ask how our trip was they usually ask me why it was so wonderful. Of course I can say the animals were amazing, the accommodations were both exotic and luxurious and the food was superb, but this would not really tell the story. The reason our lives have "changed" is because of the people and most of all because of our guides.
In both Tanzania and Kenya our guides were wonderful. They made the trip special. With their knowledge and warm personalities and their ability to handle the different challenges of 18 people traveling together (who don't actually know each other) they are all an asset to your company.
Shaukat, Raymond and Jay took care of us in Tanzania and each of them with their different abilities and knowledge made our visit truly unique and memorable. I would say that it can't be easy driving across the Serengeti with those really rough roads and 6 loud American tourists asking 100 questions and never missing an animal or bird for us to see. Shaukat found us a Pygmy Falcon in a tree that had to be 100 yards away and I didn't even see him look up from the steering wheel to do that.
I was teary eyed as we parted with our Tanzanian guides thinking that the guides in Kenya could not be as good. Of course I was completely mistaken. Andrew, Mule and Bernard were wonderful as were Joseph, Stanley and Henry in Samburu.
They all shared personal stories with us that make the drives more interesting. Henry had us wait just a moment longer than some of the other jeeps around one day and we saw some male lions fighting which was very exciting. Our car was particularly interested in birds and Joseph really treated us to many birds, he really knows his stuff.
Finally there were many of the group that had traveled with IE before and all we heard from them were wonderful comments. This was our first IE trip but after hearing the stories from the rest of the group and with our wonderful experience in Africa we will definitely be back.
I have included Park East (who we originally booked our trip with), Tanzania Photographic Safaris (who took care of us in Tanzania) and our local travel agent in Seattle (Judy Easterbrooks with Advance Travel) on this e-mail so they could all see what a wonderful experience we had. I was not able to find an e-mail for Origins (our company in Kenya) and I would be ever so grateful if you could make sure that they read this as well. Or if you have their e-mail I would be happy to forward it to them.
Thank you for being part of the most amazing experience of our lives (to date). Wendy Waltz and Tim McBeth
(Seattle, WA)
